The White Rabbit’s Way

Have you ever seen white rabbits? With white fur, white paws and white ears? Their eyes are blue-green but apart from that, they are completely white. Not like the rabbits in the farms, not even the most wild ones – nor do I think of the really rare sort we saw in the Berliner zoo. I mean the white rabbit, so white that rice seems confetti in comparison! I believe you might never have met one, otherwise you wouldn’t be thinking so much now, since who, like me, saw it, immediately knows what I mean. I met him on one of the many grey streets of a big city, it doesn’t matter which one, or maybe it does – he was jumping there over the asphalt bouncing like a ladybug on its shell. There are stray cats and wild foxes walking around in the early hours of the morning or in the desert evenings between the last light of the afternoon and the first enlightened darkness – in those twenty minutes of ritual passage which faints among the last accomplishments of the day. In those threshold times, people are tired and more confused and somehow even blind. That’s also the moment then, when stray cats and foxes cross the road but there’s only one particular moment, only an Augenblick, when you can see the white rabbit. If you’re attentive and quick you can catch sight of a white fur, a really white stain over the carriage – you know every eye has got the black spot – a point in the pupil which is blind; well, exactly like that – imagine such a blind flake in your vision, but white! And that’s it – how you’ll recognize a white rabbit. Like a smile falls on your face, or a thought enter your mind, or a dream your sleep, that’s how you might catch a glimpse of such a rabbit. But – yes – it doesn’t happen to everybody – because it’s also a matter of luck – and a matter of being brave with time and keep awake your spirit even when the season gets stiff. In fact I saw him in winter. At the end of February? Was it the end of March? I recognized this snow-ball jumping on the side-walk, then he got behind a car and crossed the road to a parking lot. As he was bouncing I could see the stones and trash on the pavements turn white and even the entire streets under his feet would become white like a snowy meadow. And you know the miracle of snow: which paints the cold fern surrounding to correspond to human emotions. Cars wheels become toys and me, a pedestrian like any other, is not forced anymore in the urbanistic projects of some government employee, on a gazastrip of sidewalk, rather he becomes the frog and prince of the realm-world. Snow paints the city as a play-ground. And there he was, the playful rabbit, with his snow-tail round and puffy like cotton candy. But – believe me – even the whitest candyfloss – looks pale grey in comparison to the whitest rabbit. He’s not the whitest – he’s just white. You understand that? I know, it’s difficult to understand. However, I mean to tell you the story of the white rabbit, who turns into snow whatever he bounces upon – sometimes into melting snow, when we talk of my breast. He’s a bit like a run-away heart – which pants and cries and tricks even the sun in a giant bright white snowy moon! He was in Chicago, at the time of the story – to be precise – he was almost in Chicago – since there was so much emotion and so much snow coming up immediately under his feet that he had problems even to walk on and arrive to Chicago. Over the entire city were growing snow-meadows opening up carpets of flakes and snow-balls to his bouncing arrival. This time – it was enough for him to look ahead and snow was already falling the way in summer some sprouts spring up in the twinkling of an eye. So it was that, paradoxically, it was even difficult to walk on and had to roll instead of bouncing, so much snow covered the streets! But we know – it’s a bit like this for everybody – that happiness can be so thick sometimes to paralyze you – emotions so strong to free your angel and let the human brain hanging like a carillon. But then – like with the music-box – the lid opens up and on a stretching stick the dancer appears. She bends a knee up and performs two pirouettes; those correspond to our talismanic tears of joy: talismanic because they belong to previous and future generations, meanwhile to us for a moment. It was like that also for the white rabbit – his happiness could take the shape of a scary ghost and so much joy would build skyscrapers of snow – almost insurmountable, but ultimately essentially surmountable, on top of his sled, because he was the white rabbit of this realm, the beating heart of this joy. Well, some get scared of their shadow; white rabbits, who never admit any fear, just build up their emotions to seem monsters – then to realize that they themselves are the playful bunnies jumping there around! So it was that White Rabbit arrived in Chicago, tired and panting and happy as ever. It was a day in winter 2010-2011. The newspapers reported: “Chicago's 20.2 inches of snow was the city's third-largest amount on record in the city’s history.” But finally there he was – beautifully smiling – in his burrow. I could see him on the screen and in my dreams.  

P.S. The White Rabbit has got a passion for weather forecasts. Here they are:

The highest snowfall on record in Chicago was in January 1967, with 23 inches, followed by January 1999 with 21.6 inches. The 2011 blizzard's total was 20.2 inches at O'Hare Airport, according to the National Weather Service. The blizzard is expected to be followed by bitter cold, with wind chill temperatures forecast to plunge to 20 to 30 below zero Wednesday night.